


Five Hours

by TriDom



Series: Drowning at Night Universe [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Drinking, Graphic Imagery, M/M, One Shot of John and Elias, Pre-Drowning at Night, Recreational Drug Use, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-13 15:59:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18472249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriDom/pseuds/TriDom
Summary: John and Elias's relationship has always skimmed the surface. John couldn't say when it changed into something deeper, but if he was forced to give an answer, he would say it was a lot of little instances that amounted to a relationship he didn't want to live without.When his world comes a hair's width from ending, it's Elias's door he drives to at two in the morning.





	Five Hours

**Author's Note:**

> ** This fic is a supplement to self-titled work in this series Drowning at Night. It won't make sense without reading that one first **
> 
> This takes place between the time that Chris goes missing and before Stiles moves in with Peter. Just as a reminder, Stiles suffered with depression and John was very worried about him committing suicide for awhile, but that was mentioned earlier in Drowning.

John sat in his truck outside of the pole-barn home. The security light glowed green on the windows. A breeze was stirring a large pipe wind chime. The rope it was tied to creaked against the porch eve.

Then the light near the front door came on. John pushed himself out of the truck.

“It’s just me,” he said.

“Who else was going to be sitting in my driveway at three in the morning?” Elias asked. “I’ve got a phone. You should try using it next time.”

“Yeah,” John said, walking up the steps to see Elias put the .45 he answered the door with on the table just inside. The one his work boots sat beneath, because his grandma hated gravel dust on the floors.

For his tone, Elias’s face was sheet-creased and the divot between his eyes gave away the worry.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing. Just needed a drive,” he said.

“Mhm.”

John sniffed, staring off the porch into the dark. Elias’s grandparent’s house was a block yards and yards away. He flicked beneath his nose before he stepped closer and grabbed Elias. He held him tightly and Elias hugged him back. His cheek was rough against the side of his neck as he slid his fingers into the nape of his hair.

“It’s alright, Johnny,” he mumbled against his skin.

He smelled like weed and bourbon.

Then Elias pulled him inside. John wiped his eyes as he followed him into the narrow hall.

“Want to stay up a bit?”

“I don’t even know. I’m sorry for showing up like this,” he said, wiping his eye again.

“No one’s dead are they?”

John sniffed hard and shook his head. It was pounding. “No they’re all fine.”

“Good,” Elias said, lingering before he went toward his kitchen.

John toed off his shoes and followed him. Elias had only turned on the lights above the peninsula in his kitchen. Two low balls were sitting on the thin stone counter. He poured a few fingers of bourbon into each.

Then he opened a small cabinet beside his sink, taking down a dug out, and flipping on the vent hood above his stove. John sat on one of the bar stools and picked up a glass. Elias clinked his against it before the both drank. Elias sipped. John finished his and Elias poured him more before making him a glass of water from the tap. It was almost warm against John’s palm as he picked it up.

“When do you have to go back?” Elias asked as he ground a wooden bat into the dugout.

“I don’t know. Soon.”

“You’re welcome as long as you want,” he said before he held the bat between his lips and flicked a red Bic a few times. The sides were covered in black ashy circles.

“Thanks,” John said, pouring himself another drink.

“Want some of this?”

“No. Thanks.”

The smell made his mouth water even with Elias blowing the smoke toward the vent that hummed in the silence. After a few puffs, he tapped the wood against his ceramic sink. It sounded like the tapping of air in a diaphragm. Tap. Tap. Ta-Tap.

John rubbed his forehead before he threw back most of the glass he poured himself and chased the sweetness with water.

“I’m sorry for showing up like this.”

“You know I don’t care,” Elias said.

After a few minutes, he flipped off the vent. His house was so quiet. It always was.

“Someone take a shot at you?”

“No,” he said, “Nothing like that.”

Elias hummed.

John took another drink, leaning on the counter and staring into the glass and the ripple of the granite through the amber. It stung his tongue and warmed the insides of his ears.

“Got a call about a suicide right up by the house,” he said. “Just shook me up.”

The corner of Elias’s mouth twisted. “Sorry.”

John nodded, rolling his lips between his teeth. “Not uncommon, though.”

“No. I guess it isn’t.”

John finished his drink, then the water before he stood up. His feet felt heavy. He unbuckled his gunbelt he hadn’t realized he’d been wearing. His pistol sounded heavy on the counter. Elias went to the light and flipped it off before John followed him out of the room and down the hall to his bedroom that always smelled intensely of Elias. Sweat, dust, and something that smelled slightly different in any bedroom he’d ever stepped foot in.

Elias didn’t even turn on the light as John went to the bathroom and pissed out five hours of liquid. When he came out, Elias was already in bed. John unbuttoned his overshirt, laying it on the dresser before he pushed off his uniform pants.

He laid on his back beside Elias, who laid the same way. John put his arm over his eyes then opened them again when the puffy blue face filled his head. All he could see was darkness in the bedroom, but it was enough.

He started to speak a few times before he made himself.

“They were trying not to radio me,” he said quietly. “They thought I was off my shift, but I hadn’t been able to clock out yet.”

“The station?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Someone spotted him from their kitchen window, across the road, in the treeline. I-,” he swallowed. “I thought I was going to vomit when I heard it. It was just down the road from the house. I got there first and,” John’s eyes burned as stinging tears felt like gasoline. “I knew it was him. His back was to me. White t-shirt. Jeans. Dark hair. He was just swaying slightly from a tall tree limb. I couldn’t see his face. It felt like if I saw his face I would snap. I couldn’t do it. But I knew it was Stiles. Felt it.”

Elias squeezed his wrist. John inhaled a breath that shook all the way into his chest.

“I could smell someone had cut their grass. I remembered thinking that would be the last thing I ever smelled, because I can't survive losing him. I can't go to sleep and wake up in a world that my boy isn't in. I was taking out my pistol to shoot myself when the body swung just enough for me to see it wasn’t him. The man was at least thirty. No moles. They didn’t look anything alike.”

Elias turned on his side, pushing him slightly until John rolled over. He put his arm under his neck and the other around his waist, his hand against his chest. John squeezed his hand as his back quaked. Elias brushed his lips against the back of his neck.

“It’s alright,” he whispered. “I’ve gotcha.”

Even as he cried, he felt Elias’s breath against the back of his neck, steady and warm. Five hours in the dark with only the radio for company suddenly felt like so little. Five hours was only time to put him where he belonged.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a few small snips I'd like to write for these two off and on. If I do add to it, I'll do it under this series. There are also a few snips of Pre-Drowning Stiles/Chris things I may add to this, as well as some Peter/Stiles moments. This series is going to wrap up this month, so if you want to get updates on supplemental pieces, subscribe to the series. :) <3 Thank you guys for being so wonderful and patient. As much as I love this story, I'm so happy to see it finally reaching it's conclusion.


End file.
